The Weekly Compete Pulse

Here’s a round up of our favorite digital marketing stories from around the web this week: Retailers' digital ad spending nears $10 billion this year. Retail spends more on digital advertising than any other industry; they already account for 22.3% of all digital ad spend. eMarketers forecasts retailers spending another $1 billion next year with the majority of spending going towards direct response ads--driving traffic to a sale, often through search.

Here’s a round up of our favorite digital marketing stories from around the web this week:

Retailers’ digital ad spending nears $10 billion this year. Retail spends more on digital advertising than any other industry; they already account for 22.3% of all digital ad spend. eMarketer forecasts retailers spending another $1 billion next year with the majority of spending going towards direct-response ads–driving traffic to a sale, often through search. Financial services, travel companies, and consumer packaged goods companies are all expected to increase spending–while ad spend by healthcare and consumer electronics companies will grow at a slower rate.

Google is expected to earn 56% of the $16 billion mobile advertising market in 2013. Facebook takes second place which is impressive considering Facebook didn’t make any money from mobile two years ago. Surprisingly, neither Yahoo! nor Microsoft are the next big advertisers. eMarketer reports Pandora and Twitter are generating the 3rd and 4th most mobile ad revenue, bringing in $400 million and $310 million respectively.

Why Google wanted Waze: the local ad market is going mobile. Google officially announced it was purchasing the social driving app, Waze, for an undisclosed amount over $1 billion. Knowing exactly where people are in their cars is extremely valuable data to marketers–a person driving by a store is more likely to convert than someone sitting at home. The app will remain standalone, but Google is looking forward to incorporating its search data into Waze.

82% of ecommerce merchants not tracking mobile sales. A new study shows an alarming number of brands do not know how many of their sales are done on mobile devices. Despite the recent increase in mobile ecommerce sales, 49% of ecommerce merchants said that their sites are not optimized for mobile! They are missing out on sales by not having easy to navigate sites. Check out the full results of the study on Mobile Commerce Daily.

What was was your favorite digital marketing story this week? We’d love for you to share links in the comments.

About Carro Halpin:Carro is excited to join the Compete team as the Digital Marketing Co-op for Compete.com, with a focus on all things social media. A third-year student at Northeastern University, Carro is pursuing a major in Communication Studies and a minor in Political Science. She has a passion for digital media. Follow her on Twitter @carrohalpin or connect on Google+